This is a Beta release and has not been tested on cfw 3.55 / 3.40, only confirmed working by me on rogero cfw 4.30 v2.05. Please, if you find issues running this release on specific cfw and / or you know how to sign them properly, post a reply or pm me, thanks!

What is FB Alpha?

FB Alpha is an arcade emulator supporting the following platforms;

Capcom CPS-1

Capcom CPS-2

Capcom CPS-3

Cave

Data East DEC-0, DEC-8 and DECO IC16 based games

Galaxian based hardware

Irem M62, M63, M72, M90 and M92 hardware

Kaneko 16

Konami

Neo-Geo

Pacman based hardware

PGM

Psikyo 68EC020 and SH-2 based hardware

Sega System 1, System 16 (and similar), System 18, X-Board and Y-Board

Toaplan 1

Toaplan 2

Taito F2, X, Z and others

Miscellaneous drivers for lots of other hardware

FB Alpha also has a WIP console drivers for Sega Megadrive/Genesis and also PC-Engine/TurboGrafx 16/SuperGrafx.

FB Alpha (for Windows), can currently be obtained from barryharris.me.uk.

What is FB Alpha Retro Loader ?

FB Alpha RL is a PS3 homebrew application coded from scratch, and not based in any other public source code by other developers. It is a result of many hours of dedication and research.

It is in no way a dirty hack of RetroArch or something similar. By the contrary, FB Alpha RL serves as a independent frontend to RetroArch and provides features not incorporated in it.

I did had to make a modified RetroArch core to be included along my application, so it could process the arguments or new commands that FB Alpha RL will be sending to it.

Objective of FB Alpha RL (Retro Loader):

As a dev from the official FB Alpha Team, FB Alpha RL was made with a objective in mind, to keep the original experience from the official FB Alpha (for Windows OS) on the PS3 system.

FB Alpha RL uses a custom "burn_drivers.h" header file that was generated by modifying the official windows version of FB Alpha with a routine to generate such file on launch.

The header have a big structure with all the information for all supported drivers in FB Alpha v0.2.97.28.

Information such as:

Romset Name (Ex. kof2002)

Parent ROM (Ex. sf2)

Year

Manufacturer (Ex. Capcom)

System (Ex. Neo Geo)

Max players

Game Screen Resolution

Game Screen Aspect Ratio

Future release will have a custom generated header with all the ROM information as well, so the application will be able to verify every romset with precise CRC32 checks (as in the official FB Alpha for Windows).

NOTE: You don't need the official RetroArch installed, this already has my own modified build incorporated into FB Alpha RL installation directory. So you can safely install the official RetroArch and it won't interfere.

Usage:

Use UP / DOWN to navigate Game List.

Use Left Analog UP / DOWN to navigate Game List.

Press L1 / R1 to toggle game system filter.

Press L2 / R2 for quick Game List navigation.

Press [ ] to view ZIP information.

Press /\ to view ROM Information.

Press to Load the selected Game.

Press [SELECT] to return to Main Menu.

Press [START] to Rescan ROM(s).

Features:

ROMs paths directory browser.

Input Preset CFG file browser.

Game List cache feature.

Missing games listing.

Alternate key combo to access RetroArch core menu.

1080p / 720p / 480p display modes supported.

Game Preview display feature (hover a game to see its preview).

Game System Filtering for easier game selection.

Custom Game System Filtering available in the options menu.

Auto configure screen Aspect Ratio on game load.

Quick ROM(s) scanning / re-scanning in extensive path locations.

Romset validation against FB Alpha v0.2.97.28 drivers library.

Checking for duplicate ROM(s).

Detailed info about listed ROM(s).

ZIP Content Information display.

Full game name display for easier navigation.

Game Information (Year, Company, etc...).

Direct loading of ROM(s).

Support for Screenshots (press and look in XMB photo column).

GUI based on OpenGL / PSGL textures (Thanks to Squarepusher / Twinaphex for the tips).

More... (read the change logs for more features)

WIP / Coming on future releases:

Display Extended ROM information by pressing .

MAME history DAT parsing support.

Title / Flyers image display feature.

Changelog:

1.01 (February 15, 2013) (BETA)

Added information text display for selected options.

Added ROMs path directory browser.

Added Input Preset CFG file browser.

Added confirmation dialog when exiting FB Alpha RL.

Added feature to display Missing Games.

Added Game List Cache feature to avoid having to rescan ROMs every time FB Alpha RL is launched.

Added Game System Filter (Press L1 / R1 to toggle game system filters).

Added ROM(s) re-scanning module (Press [START] to re-scan ROM(s)).

Rewrote FB Alpha RL to make better use of PSGL, now it supports a better GUI based on texture rendering (Thanks to Squarepusher/Twinaphex for the tips).

FB Alpha RL will check for important directories needed by RetroArch on launch, and will create them as needed. If you have the official RetroArch installed and it have missing directories as well for some reason, they will be created to make sure everything work fine.

Incremented number of displayed games.

Added quick list navigation by pressing L2 / R2.

Added Analog Stick support to navigate lists.

Added Main menu with various useful items.

Added ZIP Info feature (press [ ] to view ZIP info).

Updated FB Alpha (libretro) core.

(FBA core) Fixed graphic problems in CPS-1 driver.

(FBA core) Fixed Diagnostic Menu Lock-up in some games.

Added Screenshot feature (press and look in Photo XMB column).

Improved application core overall and fixed some bugs.

FB Alpha RL will not process WIP drivers from now on until compatibility is better(Megadrive, PCE, SNES).

To quote: Hiyas everyone, today I come with something that I've been working for the last few days, please read the documentation before using it, I know that some people don't usually like to read, but please take a minute to read and see what FB Alpha RL offers.

Note: I verified the problems with emulation of CPS-1, and it seems it is only happening on libretro port, not on the Windows official release of FB Alpha. I tried to see if I could find the issue, but I couldn't identify it.

Information:

As a dev from the official FB Alpha Team, FB Alpha RL was made with a objective in mind, to keep the original experience from the official FB Alpha (for Windows OS) on the PS3 system.

Even when I don't know how to implement a fancy GUI for the PS3 system with textures and all the complicated stuff, I managed to use my previous application core (gamePKG core) to create this nice frontend for RetroArch's FB Alpha core.

I know that RetroArch is already a frontend, but I like to keep things simple and straight to the point.

Please, read the technical info for more details.

Technical Info:

Signed for CFW 3.40 / 4.XX (should work for everyone). Tested at 1080p resolution via HDMI.

FB Alpha RL uses a custom "burn_drivers.h" header file that was generated by modifying the official windows version of FB Alpha with a routine to generate such file on launch.

The header have a big structure with all the information for all supported drivers in FB Alpha v0.2.97.28. Information such as:

Romset Name (Ex. kof2002)

Parent ROM (Ex. sf2)

Year

Manufacturer (Ex. Capcom)

System (Ex. Neo Geo)

Max players

Game Screen Resolution

Game Screen Aspect Ratio

Future release will have a custom generated header with all the ROM information as well, so the application will be able to verify every romset with precise CRC32 checks (as in the official FB Alpha for Windows).

NOTE: You don't need the official RetroArch installed, this already has my own modified build incorporated into FB Alpha RL installation directory. So you can safely install the official RetroArch and it won't interfere.

Usage:

Use UP and DOWN to select Games.

Press (X) to Load the selected Game.

Press (O) to Quit and return to XMB.

Press [SELECT] to Load "RetroArch" (FB Alpha Core).

Features:

Auto configure screen Aspect Ratio on game load.

Quick ROM(s) scanning in extensive path locations.

Romset validation against FB Alpha v0.2.97.28 drivers library.

Checking for duplicate ROM(s).

Detailed info about listed ROM(s).

Full game name display for easier navigation.

Direct loading of ROM(s).

Simple GUI & nice application logos(LMAO xD).

WIP / Coming on future releases:

Set System Input preset on Game Load (Ex. NeoGeo.cfg / Shooters.cfg / etc).

What version of fbanext do you have? I think mine is version r492 & all metal slug games, so far, have been working just fine. Since these are neo-geo games, make sure you have the right neo-geobios.zip (1.3+ mb ver.) placed in the same folder as your metal slug games. Or you can download the newer retroarch 0.9.7 emulator since neo-geo games runs well on them too.

Thank you very much for the advice friend. Greatly appreciate it. Here's hoping that someone could provide me the link to where I can download the r492 version 'coz I can only find the r490. I'm sure there are also others like me w/ the same problem & would be very happy if they could also download the r492 version. Again, I say thank you.

This has to do with the a bug in the FBANext emulator. Most versions of it have problems if the roms folder located in the game/FBAN000000/something.xml (don't quite remember what it is right now off the top of my head, but the path should be right) isn't present, FBA will black screen. This happens from r439 on and gets fixed in r492 when they started using a text file instead of a xml file.

You can try to find a copy of r492 to fix the problem/make the path in the xml file or you can try the more up to date retroarch. Though I have a lot of problems loading FBANext/neogeo games on there without it hanging. All the other emulators are fine. Anyone else have this problem?

Hello, I was installing emulators this past few days on my ps3 & everything was going along just fine. I was able to install snes, vba, genesis, & FCEU emulators without any hitch. That was until I installed the fbanext emulator & my headaches began. When I try to launch it, all I get is a black screen & I'm forced to turn my console off to restart it. Could someone please help me find a way to fix this problem?

I tried searching but can't seem to find any satisfactory solutions. Please help me. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.